scholarly journals Sorting Out Solutions to the Now-What Problem

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
François Jaquet
Keyword(s):  
Point Of View ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Moral Error ◽  
Moral Facts

Moral error theorists face the so-called “now-what problem”: what should we do with our moral judgments from a prudential point of view if these judgments are uniformly false? On top of abolitionism and conservationism, which respectively advise us to get rid of our moral judgments and to keep them, three revisionary solutions have been proposed in the literature: expressivism (we should replace our moral judgments with conative attitudes), naturalism (we should replace our moral judgments with beliefs in non-moral facts), and fictionalism (we should replace our moral judgments with fictional attitudes). In this paper, I argue that expressivism and naturalism do not constitute genuine alternatives to abolitionism, of which they are in the end mere variants—and, even less conveniently, variants that are conform to the very spirit of abolitionism as formulated by its proponents. The main version of fictionalism, by contrast, provides us with a recommendation to which abolitionists cannot consistently subscribe. This leaves us with only one revisionary solution to the now-what problem.

scholarly journals Précis of Moral Error Theory: History, Critique, Defence

2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 397-402
Author(s):  
Jonas Olson
Keyword(s):  
Moral Realism ◽  
Error Theory ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Moral Beliefs ◽  
Moral Error Theory ◽  
Ontological Question ◽  
Moral Error ◽  
Contemporary Perspective ◽  
Moral Facts

Moral error theorists and moral realists agree about several disputed metaethical issues. They typically agree that ordinary moral judgments are beliefs and that ordinary moral utterances purport to refer to moral facts. But they disagree on the crucial ontological question of whether there are any moral facts. Moral error theorists hold that there are not and that, as a consequence, ordinary moral beliefs are systematically mistaken and ordinary moral judgments uniformly untrue. Perhaps because of its kinship with moral realism, moral error theory is often considered the most notorious of moral scepticisms. While the view has been widely discussed, it has had relatively few defenders. Moral Error Theory: History, Critique, Defence (henceforth met) examines the view from a historical as well as a contemporary perspective, and purports to respond to some of its most prominent challenges. This précis is a brief summary of the book’s content.

scholarly journals Prospects for Moral Success Theory

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Emma Susan Wood
Keyword(s):  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Error Theory ◽  
Ideal Observer ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Practical Reasons ◽  
Moral Error Theory ◽  
Positive Account ◽  
Moral Error ◽  
External Reasons ◽  
Moral Facts

<p>In this thesis, I will argue that the existence of moral facts does not rely on the existence of a reason for action, and that moral facts can be made sense of in other ways. My thesis is both a reply to a type of moral error theory that has been advanced by Richard Joyce and John Mackie, and an account of the truthmakers of moral judgments.  The argument for error theory that I respond to is roughly as follows: moral judgments are judgments about external practical reasons. But external reasons do not exist, and so no moral judgment is ever true. In the first part of my thesis, I will argue in favour of the latter premise of the error theorist’s argument, but against the former: external reasons do not exist, but moral judgments are not committed to them.  In the second half of my thesis I build up a positive account of what moral judgments involve. If moral judgments are not judgments about reasons, then what are moral judgments about? I develop the widely supported idea that moral judgments are judgments that are based on welfarist considerations, and attempt to give this idea a more precise formulation than what has been previously offered. From this account, I go on to develop an account of the truthmakers of moral judgments. The account I end up with is an ideal observer theory that I believe makes sense of a broad range of intuitions about morality.  My hope is that this thesis will be of interest to others who feel the pull of moral error theory, but would prefer to see moral success theory vindicated.</p>

scholarly journals Prospects for Moral Success Theory

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Emma Susan Wood
Keyword(s):  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Error Theory ◽  
Ideal Observer ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Practical Reasons ◽  
Moral Error Theory ◽  
Positive Account ◽  
Moral Error ◽  
External Reasons ◽  
Moral Facts

<p>In this thesis, I will argue that the existence of moral facts does not rely on the existence of a reason for action, and that moral facts can be made sense of in other ways. My thesis is both a reply to a type of moral error theory that has been advanced by Richard Joyce and John Mackie, and an account of the truthmakers of moral judgments.  The argument for error theory that I respond to is roughly as follows: moral judgments are judgments about external practical reasons. But external reasons do not exist, and so no moral judgment is ever true. In the first part of my thesis, I will argue in favour of the latter premise of the error theorist’s argument, but against the former: external reasons do not exist, but moral judgments are not committed to them.  In the second half of my thesis I build up a positive account of what moral judgments involve. If moral judgments are not judgments about reasons, then what are moral judgments about? I develop the widely supported idea that moral judgments are judgments that are based on welfarist considerations, and attempt to give this idea a more precise formulation than what has been previously offered. From this account, I go on to develop an account of the truthmakers of moral judgments. The account I end up with is an ideal observer theory that I believe makes sense of a broad range of intuitions about morality.  My hope is that this thesis will be of interest to others who feel the pull of moral error theory, but would prefer to see moral success theory vindicated.</p>

Nietzsche’s Anti-Realism about Value

2019 ◽  
pp. 17-48
Author(s):  
Brian Leiter
Keyword(s):  
Moral Values ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Explanatory Role ◽  
Moral Philosophers ◽  
Moral Facts

Nietzsche defends the metaphysical thesis that there are no objective (i.e. mind-independent) facts about values, including moral values. His primary arguments for his moral anti-realism are “best explanation” arguments: the best explanation of our moral judgments, indeed of the two-millennium long disagreements among moral philosophers, make no reference to objective moral facts. The details of an “inference to the best explanation” are laid out, and illustrated with Nietzsche’s own texts. Contemporary attempts to defend the explanatory role of moral facts are critiqued, and the radical implications of the argument from disagreement among philosophers considered and defended.

scholarly journals Why Moral Error Theorists Should Become Revisionary Moral Expressivists

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Toby Svoboda
Keyword(s):  
Moral Reasoning ◽  
Moral Motivation ◽  
Moral Disagreement ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Moral Error ◽  
Better Than

Moral error theorists hold that morality is deeply mistaken, thus raising the question of whether and how moral judgments and utterances should continue to be employed. Proposals include simply abolishing morality (Richard Garner), adopting some revisionary fictionalist stance toward morality (Richard Joyce), and conserving moral judgments and utterances unchanged (Jonas Olson). I defend a fourth proposal, namely revisionary moral expressivism, which recommends replacing cognitivist moral judgments and utterances with non-cognitivist ones. Given that non-cognitivist attitudes are not truth apt, revisionary expressivism does not involve moral error. Moreover, revisionary expressivism has the theoretical resources to retain many of the useful features of morality, such as moral motivation, moral disagreement, and moral reasoning. Revisionary expressivism fares better than the three major alternatives in both avoiding moral error and preserving these useful features of morality. I also show how this position differs from the “revolutionary expressivism” of Sebastian Köhler and Michael Ridge.

scholarly journals On the Defensibility and Believability of Moral Error Theory

2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 461-473 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonas Olson
Keyword(s):  
Moral Realism ◽  
Error Theory ◽  
Oxford University ◽  
Moral Error Theory ◽  
Moral Error ◽  
Oxford University Press ◽  
Moral Facts

This article is a response to critical articles by Daan Evers, Bart Streumer, and Teemu Toppinen on my book Moral Error Theory: History, Critique, Defence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014). I will be concerned with four main topics. I shall first try to illuminate the claim that moral facts are queer, and its role in the argument for moral error theory. In section 2, I discuss the relative merits of moral error theory and moral contextualism. In section 3, I explain why I still find the queerness argument concerning supervenience an unpromising argument against non-naturalistic moral realism. In section 4, finally, I reconsider the question whether I, or anyone, can believe the error theory.

Billy Graham as American Religious and Cultural Symbol

2015 ◽  
Vol 108 (3) ◽  
pp. 471-481
Author(s):  
Curtis J. Evans
Keyword(s):  
Point Of View ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Religious Leader ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Past ◽  
Historical Figures ◽  
Billy Graham ◽  
Public Consciousness ◽  
Moral Choices ◽  
Great Pain

Writing a biography challenges us in fundamental ways as scholars of religion, as historians, and as human beings. We are forced to reckon with the implicit and explicit theological commitments of religious persons, the ways they inhabited the world, the sometimes “strange country” that is the past, and the varied ways in which our subjects took for granted things by which we find ourselves and our age so troubled. While we may eschew “taking sides” in our attempts to be good scholars and under the noble goal of not wanting simplistically and reflexively to impose our contemporary moral judgments upon figures from the past, we cannot avoid discussing the moral choices historical actors made, assessing their prominence in their time, their influence on their broader surroundings, and their legacy beyond their times. All of these factors have great bearing on how we narrate the lives of historical figures and how we represent them in the present. James Baldwin's impassioned claim that it is with “great pain and terror [that] one begins to assess the history which has placed one where one is, and formed one's point of view” might sound a bit overly deterministic, but it is worth remembering when thinking self-consciously about how we critically assess and evaluate those about whom we write. Grant Wacker's new biography of Billy Graham, America's Pastor, invites the reader along to grasp more fully what this looks like as Wacker, a self-described “partisan of the same evangelical tradition Graham represented,” masterfully evokes and unfolds Graham as a shaper of public consciousness and a spokesperson for millions of “ordinary Americans.” This work possesses the virtues of the careful and considered reflections of a seasoned historian's analysis of the life of a famous religious leader who is deeply admired by many Americans. It is about the closest we will get to a full appreciation of Graham the man and Graham the icon.

scholarly journals Wpływ moralności na przeciwdziałanie zmianom klimatycznym

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
pp. 17-41
Author(s):  
Thomas Pölcer ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Moral Judgement ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Industrialized Countries ◽  
Moral Practice ◽  
Moral Error ◽  
General Conditions

Suppose you are a moral error theorist, i.e., you believe that no moral judgment is true. What, then, ought you to do with regard to our common practice of mak-ing such judgments? Determining the usefulness of our ordinary moral practice is exacerbated by the great number and variety of moral judgments. In-depth case studies may thus be more helpful in clarifying error theory’s practical im-plications than refl ections about morality in general. In this chapter I pursue this strategy with regard to a particularly important matter, namely climate change. First, I establish general conditions for when a moral judgement has any eff ect on those who accept it. Second, I show that the judgement that in-dividuals in industrialized countries are morally obliged to act against climate change does not fulfi l these conditions, and is thus neither benefi cial nor harm-ful. Finally, I sketch several strategies for increasing people’s non-moral moti-vation to act against climate.

scholarly journals I Might be Fundamentally Mistaken

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Ridge
Keyword(s):  
Moral Belief ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
First Person ◽  
Ordinary People ◽  
Realist Theory ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
Moral Content ◽  
Simon Blackburn ◽  
Moral Error ◽  
Influential Paper

Quasi-realism aspires to preserve the intelligibility of the realist-sounding moral judgments of ordinary people. These judgments include ones of the form, “I believe that p, but I might be mistaken,” where “p” is some moral content. The orthodox quasi-realist strategy (famously developed by Simon Blackburn) is to understand these in terms of the agent’s worrying that some improving change would lead one to aban-don the relevant moral belief. However, it is unclear whether this strate-gy generalizes to cases in which the agent takes their error to be funda-mental in a sense articulated by Andy Egan. In an influential paper, Egan argues that it does not. Egan suggests that Blackburn’s approach is the only game in town for the quasi-realist when it comes to making sense of judgment of fallibility, and therefore concludes that Blackburn’s ina-bility to handle worries about fundamental moral error refutes quasi-realism tout court. Egan’s challenge has generated considerable discus-sion. However, in my view, we have not yet gotten to the heart of the matter. I argue that what is still needed is a fully general, quasi-realist-friendly theory of the nature of first-person judgments of fallibility, such that these judgments are demonstrably consistent with judging that the belief is stable in Egan’s sense. In this article, I develop and defend a fully general quasi-realist theory of such judgments, which meets this demand. With this theory in hand, I argue that Egan’s challenge can be met. Moreover, my discussion of how the challenge is best met provides an elegant diagnosis of where Egan’s argument against goes wrong. On my account, Egan’s argument equivocates at a key point between a “could” and a “would.”

Was Reid a Moral Realist?

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gordon Graham
Keyword(s):  
Good Reason ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Moral Sense ◽  
Sense Perception ◽  
Moral Realist ◽  
Moral Properties ◽  
Intellectual Power ◽  
Moral Facts

This chapter argues that, contrary to a very widely held view, Reid’s express disagreement with Hume on the matter of morality cannot satisfactorily be pressed into the “realism versus sentimentalism” dichotomy. Hume is certainly a sentimentalist, but there is good reason to interpret Reid’s use of the analogy between moral sense and sense perception in a way that does not imply the existence of “real” moral properties. Reid makes judgment central to the analogy, and this gives the exercise of an intellectual “power” primacy over passive sensual experience. The analogy thus allows him to apply the concepts “true” and “false” to moral judgments, without any quasi-realist appeal to moral facts.

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